■ Rowing
`Lay Down Sally’ struggling
Controversial Australian rower Sally Robbins will have one last chance to gain selection for the Beijing Olympics when trials continue in Sydney today. Robbins was dubbed “Lay Down Sally” when she stopped rowing toward the end of the women’s eights final in Athens four years ago, slumping into the lap of the rower behind her. She is now trying to qualify for Beijing but her results have not been impressive. Without a win over the weekend, Robbins’s chances of selection appear doomed. Her absence would not cause too many tears to be shed among her teammates according to Australian media reports. “All the rowers on the team know and think [Robbins] needs to have a fair go but there are benefits with her missing selection,” one rower said.
■ Soccer
Chelsea duo get all clear
Malaysia said yesterday that it would lift a travel ban on Israelis to allow Chelsea coach Avram Grant and midfielder Tal Ben Haim to visit in July as part of a mini-Asian tour. Malaysian Foreign Minister Rais Yatim said that “although we don’t have diplomatic relations with Israel or direct trade with the country, we don’t have objections over their visit. They are a sports team with two Israeli members. We don’t see it as something wrong,” he was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency. Chelsea are expected to play a Malaysian squad on July 29.
■ Swimming
Basketball training pays off
Austrian swimmer Markus Rogan has revealed his secret for breaking world records — going on holiday and training like a basketball player. Rogan said he smashed the world 200m backstroke mark at the world short-course championships on Sunday after a two-week break in Austria with his girlfriend and training sessions with a basketball player. “The way I train in swimming is touch the wall, feel it and go,” he told reporters. “In basketball, you jump up for a rebound, so we did that a lot. I didn’t believe it made any sense, but my best friend is a basketball player not a swimmer, and my coach wasn’t there.” Rogan clocked one minute 47.84 seconds to beat the 1:49.05 set by Ryan Lochte of the US in Shanghai in 2006. “I’ve no scientific proof it’s good training for swimming but it seems to work for me,” the 26-year-old said.
■ Athletics
Greene named in report
US federal investigators have named former Olympic 100m champion Maurice Greene in a report into doping. According to the New York Times, Greene was listed as one of a dozen athletes by witness Angel Guillermo Heredia. Four of the dozen athletes, including Marion Jones, have already been named and barred from competition for illicit drug use. Eight of the 12 — including, most notably, Greene — have never been previously linked to performance-enhancing drugs. Heredia, who is serving as the main witness in the case against Trevor Graham — coach of Jones, Greene and others — will testify that Graham supplied illicit drugs and advice to elite athletes. Heredia has said he supplied illicit drugs and advice on their use to Graham and his athletes. Heredia showed the paper a copy of a bank transaction form showing a US$10,000 wire transfer from Maurice Greene to a relative of the witness. Heredia also showed the paper two sets of blood-test lab reports with Greene’s name and age on them and an e-mail message from a close friend and track-club teammate of the runner, attaching one of the lab reports and saying, “Angel, [these are] Maurice’s results, sorry it took so long.”
When Joan Monfort took photographs of Lionel Messi with a baby for a charity calendar almost 17 years ago, he knew the long-haired young man would make it big in soccer. He could not have imagined the little boy would as well. The baby in the photos — which have gone viral — was none other than Lamine Yamal, the Spanish wunderkind, who at 16 is showing such promise that he is already being compared with the greats. He is the youngest person to have played for Spain and the youngest to compete in the European Championship. The long-forgotten photo from 2007
Taiwanese tennis ace Hsieh Su-wei and partner Jan Zielinski of Poland on Friday advanced to the mixed doubles final at Wimbledon, just one step away from clinching their first mixed doubles title at the tournament. Hsieh and Zielinski, who won the Australian Open title earlier this year and who had reached the semi-finals at the French Open, battled past second seeds Michael Venus and Erin Routliffe of New Zealand 7-6, (7/0), 6-3. In the first set, the Taiwanese-Polish duo saved a set point, pushing the set into a tiebreaker. They clinched the set by winning the tiebreaker with seven straight points. The duo
CHALLENGE SET: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Poland’s Jan Zielinski are to play against New Zealand’s Michael Venus and Erin Routliffe in the mixed doubles semi-finals Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and her Polish partner, Jan Zielinski, on Thursday advanced to the mixed doubles semi-final at Wimbledon in a tight battle that ended in a super tiebreaker. The seventh-seeded duo, who won the Australian Open mixed doubles title earlier this year and reached the semi-finals of the French Open, needed 125 minutes to beat Britain’s Jamie Murray and the US’ Taylor Townsend 7-6, 6-7 (10-5). Hsieh and Zielinski took the first set with a 7-2 win in the tiebreaker and seemed poised to close out the match in the second set tiebreaker when they took a 4-0 lead. With the Taiwan-Poland
Modern pentathlon has obstacles ahead as it bids farewell to the horse at the Paris Olympics and prepares for a future more familiar to fans of Ninja Warrior and Tough Mudder. The blend of fencing, freestyle swimming, show jumping, pistol shooting and cross-country running caused a commotion at the 2021 Tokyo Games when a German coach struck a horse that refused a fence. The sport was dropped from the initial list for the 2028 Los Angeles Games, but reinstated after the governing Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM), led by 77-year-old German Klaus Schormann, decided the equestrian element would be replaced by